Aerated frozen food products can be produced by mixing selected liquid ingredients with a prescribed volume of air and then freezing and dispensing the resultant mixture. The desirability of the finished product is often related directly to the manner in which, and to the degree to which, the air is metered and blended with the liquid ingredients of the mixture, referred to as overrun, and the manner in which the blended mix is frozen and then dispensed. Prior machines include many examples that dispense ice cream and other semi-frozen dairy products such as soft ice cream and frozen yogurt.
Conventionally, such machines are usually dedicated to dispensing one or two flavors of product and, in some cases, a combination of the two. For example, in an ice cream shop, there may be one machine with two separate freezing chambers for making and dispensing chocolate and vanilla ice cream, a second two-chamber machine for making and dispensing strawberry and banana ice cream, a third machine dedicated to making and dispensing coffee and frozen pudding flavors, and so on. The reason for employing multiple machines is that each chamber typically contains a volume of ice cream greater than is required for a single serving. In order to dispense a different flavor ice cream, that chamber must be emptied and cleaned before the new flavor can be made in that chamber and appear at the outlet of the dispenser. Additionally, the vat of pre-flavored mix from which the frozen product is made must also be clean enough to at least meet applicable health regulations. While high volume ice cream shops and confectionery stores may be able to accommodate several dispensing machines dispensing many different products and flavors, smaller sales outlets can usually only accommodate one or two such machines and are thus restricted in the number of flavors that they can offer to customers.
Further, because the product is typically formed in a quantity that is greater than that to be dispensed at any one serving, the excess product remains in the chamber after formation and until additional servings draw it down. The excess is thus subjected to further freezing, which promotes crystallization. Because of the relatively large quantity of the premixed flavors, and the continuous freezing of several quarts of the product, the freshness and palatability of the product may be adversely affected in outlets with relatively slow sales of the product.
Another disadvantage of many prior dispensers is that they have multiple interior surfaces and moving parts, as the cleaning and maintenance of those surfaces and parts at the end of each day or at intervals prescribed by local Health Department regulations is difficult and time-consuming. Each dispenser must be purged of any remaining product, and it's chamber walls, pumps and other internal parts cleaned thoroughly to prevent growth of bacteria that could otherwise contaminate the product being delivered by the dispenser. Not only is the cleaning operation expensive in terms of down time, it is also costly in terms of product waste. Furthermore, it can be an unpleasant task that is difficult to get employees to do properly.
While machines that dispense ice cream exist, until now no way has been found to provide a single machine capable of efficiently and economically making and dispensing different frozen food confections in a wide variety of flavors and in different formats, e.g., in a cup or cone.